On Oct 10, 2006, at 5:26 PM, Rick Cross wrote:
I've personally purchased two pieces of software that require
activation over the internet (no other way) where the companies
have gone out of business. That immediately ends the life of the
software that I paid for.
This is one aspect of internet activation that I had not thought
about before.
I feel sorry for customers in this situation, but I don't see any way
around the issue that software piracy is so prevalent. Back in your
BBS days, there really was no way to publicly distribute license
codes and so sharing was pretty much limited to friends/co-workers.
But the fact is even then the developer looses out on revenue.
It is just too bad that people are not honest, then we wouldn't have
to deal with it at all.
My preference is for a program that's activated by entering a
serial number or dropping in a key file. That number/key file
should work with at least THAT version of the program forever on
any computer.
RealBasic used to be that way. I'm not sure that it still does now
that they've gone to a subscription system.
REALbasic now uses the Internet Activation (or phone), but your
license key will still work with any REALbasic version released
during your subscription period. Of course, this does not resolve
the issue if REAL Software ever disbanded; but unless that happens
you will be able to use that particular version of REALbasic for life
on any computer that supports the license key (i.e. cannot use
REALbasic for Windows license for a Macintosh version).
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